Key lessons from the COVID-19 public health response in Australia.

Australia avoided the worst effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, but still experienced many negative impacts. Reflecting on lessons from Australia's public health response, an Australian expert panel composed of relevant discipline experts identified the following key lessons: 1) movement restrictions were effective, but their implementation requires careful consideration of adverse impacts, 2) disease modelling was valuable, but its limitations should be acknowledged, 3) the absence of timely national data requires re-assessment of national surveillance structures, 4) the utility of advanced pathogen genomics and novel vaccine technology was clearly demonstrated, 5) decision-making that is evidence informed and consultative is essential to maintain trust, 6) major system weaknesses in the residential aged-care sector require fixing, 7) adequate infection prevention and control frameworks are critically important, 8) the interests and needs of young people should not be compromised, 9) epidemics should be recognised as a 'standing threat', 10) regional and global solidarity is important. It should be acknowledged that we were unable to capture all relevant nuances and context specific differences. However, the intent of this review of Australia's public health response is to critically reflect on key lessons learnt and to encourage constructive national discussion in countries across the Western Pacific Region.

As Time Goes By: Temporal Characteristics of Social Media and Information Objective-Subjective Tensions in Crisis Communication

Social media communication is integral to framing an effective crisis response but is generally impacted by high volumes and an overload of information and misinformation, i.e., infodemic conditions. The social media connection content (i.e., information) and connection type (i.e., communications strategies) that are shared between actors (e.g., emergency response organisations and the public) underpins the development of trusted shared situational awareness for effective crisis management. This study investigates how local public health organisations use Facebook to mitigate COVID-19 misinformation and create effective trusted shared situational awareness. We show how the nature of the event and social media temporal characteristics can create information objective-subjective tensions and create misinformation on public health social media channels. This undermines an agreed and accurate representation of reality that is expected of trusted, shared situational awareness. We conclude that developing communications strategies to manage information objective-subjective tensions becomes especially important during an evolving crisis scenario where situational awareness and knowledge are developed over time and information and advice may change in response to a changing crisis conditions. © 2022, IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.

Revealing COVID-19 transmission in Australia by SARS-CoV-2 genome sequencing and agent-based modeling

In January 2020, a novel betacoronavirus (family Coronaviridae), named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), was identified as the etiological agent of a cluster of pneumonia cases occurring in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China. The disease arising from SARS-CoV-2 infection, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), subsequently spread rapidly causing a worldwide pandemic. Here we examine the added value of near real-time genome sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 in a subpopulation of infected patients during the first 10 weeks of COVID-19 containment in Australia and compare findings from genomic surveillance with predictions of a computational agent-based model (ABM). Using the Australian census data, the ABM generates over 24 million software agents representing the population of Australia, each with demographic attributes of an anonymous individual. It then simulates transmission of the disease over time, spreading from specific infection sources, using contact rates of individuals within different social contexts. We report that the prospective sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 clarified the probable source of infection in cases where epidemiological links could not be determined, significantly decreased the proportion of COVID-19 cases with contentious links, documented genomically similar cases associated with concurrent transmission in several institutions and identified previously unsuspected links. Only a quarter of sequenced cases appeared to be locally acquired and were concordant with predictions from the ABM. These high-resolution genomic data are crucial to track cases with locally acquired COVID-19 and for timely recognition of independent importations once border restrictions are lifted and trade and travel resume.